by Zach Dodd, WEGO Director
“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”
-Psalm 63:1
What profound words to guide us as we pray. Speaking to God, our Holy Friend and Creator, isn’t the time for technical jargon or rote religious phrases. We can impress others with our big fancy seminary words but God hears our hearts. Jesus Himself tells us pomp and babbling have no place in our prayer life (Matthew 6). He tells us to shut the door and open wide our hearts – slang, stutter, and all. As we see in both the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 63, prayer is deeply, deeply personal. It’s intimate and flows out of close relationship. Think middle school girl diary entry, not an official letter to the IRS. It’s seeking and longing. It’s desperately (and often ineloquently) approaching our Most High Lord who is full of love and bending His ear.
That is why I love the Psalms. David found himself running for his life in the wilderness. When pressed to the core, he didn’t suddenly drop an octave and switch to King James. He cried. He bellowed. He longed. Like Jesus in the garden, David gushed emotion. He was authentic. He opened his mouth and shared his heart. Whatever came out was his prayer.
I, too, can have that same Pharisaical temptation that Jesus rebuked, even with this prayer guide. Wait, hold on. “Pharisaical” definitely sounds like one of those seminary words. My bad. Anyway, I’m trying to say it’s easy to pray safely and just plug in some poetic requests or stale and memorized church words to sound impressive to God and others. But I can’t think of a better way to start YEAR 30 OF WEGO than simply sharing prayer requests deep from my actual heart. These following requests aren’t strategic or meant to be informational. These are what wake (and keep) me up in the middle of the night. These are my cries. You will probably feel like you’re reading my personal journal more than our normal prayer guide. But I’m asking you to join me in pouring out these requests to God on behalf of the souls we are privileged to serve around the world.
Let’s jump in together.
Let’s seek, thirst, long, and pray.
MONGOLIA:
Pray Our New Home Is Built This Year
This is what keeps me up at night. I doubt you know this but WEGO asked me to go to Mongolia on their behalf in 2013 to report back on the state of the ministry (also when this guide cover photo was taken). I wasn’t on staff then. I was a volunteer in a different career. The bulk of my report was on the rough condition of the house – mold, drooped ceilings, inadequate bathrooms, and other hazards. It’s been eleven years and the kids are still living there. I hate it. We’ve fixed as much as we can but I grieve that it’s not safer, warmer, or more adequate. We were making great progress to build a new home than COVID hit and we lost our builders. It took us years but, by God’s grace and your big sacrifice, we raised all the money for it last year. Money-in-hand, land permitting made us miss the short 2023 building season.
But here we are in January 2024, almost ready to go! Our new architects have been amazing, our land situation has been resolved, and our new builder is lined up for opening day of the Spring 2024 building season. We still have hoops to jump through, as all building projects have, but we are SO close. I’m not even going to ask you to pray for specifics right now, just join us in crying out to God for this new home to be built THIS YEAR!
Our kids are ready for a better place to grow up.
Our staff can’t wait to watch the children run around it for the first time.
I can’t wait to get stuck inside the indoor playground and lose at chess on its floor.
Lord, by your Mighty Hand, make it so.
Turn our pleas in the night to cries of joy.
NICARAGUA:
Pray God Gives Grace To Our Ministry
My words have been and will be few here. Talk to me in person to get the fuller story. I actually mean that. Email me (zach@wego.org) or call me at (321) 507-1994. Your prayers right now are that important. We need you crying out to God on behalf of our ministry in Nicaragua. God is doing a big work there (22 kids saved last fall!) and we need His help and grace to sustain us more than ever. Pray with us now for a wonderful and miraculous 2024, full of life and ministry. Pray for hungry bellies to be filled and growing minds to be educated and blessed to the brim through life in Jesus.
UKRAINE:
Pray For Sergei’s Safety And Ministry
The cry here is obvious. We pray for peace in Ukraine and an end to this brutal war. Specifically, we daily pray for God to be a Psalm 3 Shield around Sergei and his family as he lives and ministers in a warzone. Pray God guards his heart from discouragement and opens his eyes anew to the vast spiritual needs around him. Pray also for a new opportunity he has to minister through a local church near his home.
SOUTH AFRICA:
Pray For Wisdom For Next Steps
What a deep joy it has been to welcome Forever Mercy Children’s Home into our family just this last fall. We are so incredibly grateful. If nothing changes or grows, this ministry will be a gift and bless the world through the six children currently being cared for. But the vision is to expand the ministry from one home to six homes and pursue other ministry endeavors to serve East London, South Africa. For these dreams to become a reality, we need wisdom.
We are in the process of building something that is not yet. There is the forming of a South African non-profit entity. There are new families to mobilize. There will be a need for new land, new buildings, new procedures, and new budgets. The call and heart of the Menton’s and our WEGO leadership is not to grow for growth’s sake. We long to be obedient to God’s call alone. Pray God will grant us divine wisdom for each specific step along the way.
ORGANIZATION:
Pray Our Daily Needs Are Met
We very intentionally never include fundraising requests in our prayer guide. I have no qualms asking for money. I just don’t want to passively disguise the ask as a prayer request. That feels fake. And I don’t want to muddy the waters and distract you from praying for what’ll never run out or pass away – God’s supernatural work in someone’s life. But I said I’d be vulnerable and give you my cries. The ability to meet our daily budgets is definitely one of them. I often waffle between knowing with all my heart that God will provide as He always has and freaking out. You, our WEGO community, are so faithful and sacrificial. You answer every call. Just last September, you came up with $50k in one month when we shared the need.
But I have to be honest, having enough money to meet the real needs before us always weighs heavy upon me. Making sure abandoned children are well cared for, kids from impoverished families have lunch, our students have supplies, and our local staff get their paychecks is a lot for me to shoulder. By nature, running a non-profit is challenging due to the no profit part. Maybe I’m asking you to pray for my faith and trust in God to grow, not in my ability to make this all happen with some slick marketing campaign. Maybe I’m asking you to pray God continually grows our donor base. Maybe I’m asking you for money. I don’t even know. I’m sure I’m asking for all these things. But this I can ask for certain – Pray our daily needs and monthly budgets are met in 2024.